Address book applications on cellular telephones (or cell phones) and other mobile wireless devices provide a simple and easy way to quickly locate and dial phone numbers and other address information. By linking to personal digital assistants (PDA), laptops and desktop computers, and other personal storage devices, cell phone phone/address books provide a valuable business relationship mechanism for maintaining a user's database of contact information. Certain applications have been developed to make entering phone numbers into a phone list or address book easier and quicker. For example, many cell phones now save a number when a call comes in to the cell phone or a number is dialed by the user. Typically, such saved phone numbers can be easily and quickly saved into an address book or other type of speed dial list accessible to the user. These types of applications have significant advantages because manual entry of phone numbers typically can be tedious and difficult on most cell phones. However, these applications cannot assist a user when a number stored within an electronic phone book needs to be edited. In most situations, address book editing must be performed manually. For example, when a person's telephone number has changed, the cell phone user has to locate the new number and manually change it in the address book.
This problem is further compounded where an “address book” style speed dial list is holding multiple contacts within the address book that have the same information stored in the cell phone or PDA. For example, an address book may contain two separate entries for two people that live at the same home, which include the same home number. Therefore, when a number contained in multiple individuals' address pages, for example, a changed home phone number, the number must be modified on the multiple pages by hand.
What is needed is a system and method for automatically modifying telephone numbers stored in a cell phone or other mobile device when those numbers have changed. It would be preferred if such a system and method could change all instances of a changed number in a mobile devices phone book.